Second Best
by Scribbler
Summary: [one shot] Why doesn't real life run like a movie script, with everything resolved at the end and everyone with their One True Love? Very unconventional couple, per request.


DISCLAIMER ~ The only XME characters I own are set as wallpaper on my desktop.   
  
A/N ~ Because Malk told me to. No, really, he wanted something fluffy after all the Kurt-angst running rampant across the NutBoard, and though I'm not entirely sure what this metamorphosed into, it started out as a response to that demand. He also stipulated it had to be an unconventional couple, and it's certainly that. Reviews are encouraged, begged for, and survived upon. Seriously, who needs food when you have reviews? Don't put me on a diet please, people?  
  
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'Second Best' By Scribbler.  
  
November 2003  
  
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The Institute grounds were transformed at sunset. What could politely be termed 'picturesque scenery' during the day was transformed into something enchanting when the burning globe took its rest behind the horizon. If one were to look from a certain angle, out across the bay that gave the nearby town its name, it was entirely possible to expect a hiss of steam upon contact with the water. What came afterwards was a fairytale time, when Puck and his minions came out of hiding and danced amongst the carefully planted copses.  
  
Anything could be magical after dark. Even the uniform walls of a standardised bedroom, so dreary and identical to each and every other bedroom in the sprawling mansion. All people were equal here, and the décor reflected as much. Even so, with the onset of evening the borders of this particular room were blurred by shadow. It was odd, a two-toned realm giving a dichotomous sense of both freedom and claustrophobia.  
  
Staring at the ceiling, Kurt was at liberty to contemplate such poetic things. He certainly wasn't getting any sleep, though it wasn't anything to do with his bedfellow - despite the fact that she'd snagged all the sheets. Again. Since he was practically a living boiler himself, he let her have them without protest.  
  
Turning over, he regarded how the cotton clung to her slightly damp skin, masking her curves in alabaster. She was cocooned, only her face and hair showing, the latter spread across the pillow like filigree. Reaching across, he smoothed one limp curl away from her cheek. The movement elicited a shiver, and the blink of long-lashed eyes.  
  
"Mmph?"  
  
"Bed piggy," he whispered.  
  
She responded by loosing one arm and offering a scrap of sheet across. It was barely enough to keep a mouse warm, and he declined, as she'd known he would. It was all show, since they'd been through the performance before, and it should have then ended with her going back to sleep. Except that, tonight, for some unfathomable reason, she didn't.  
  
"What're you looking at?"  
  
"You. Don't ask silly questions."  
  
"Can if I want to." She yawned, hiding the ungracious act behind the recently freed hand. "Why?"  
  
"Just because." He dropped the elbow that was propping his head and fell back into his pillow. A feather popped out, whisking away over their heads, so close together yet so far apart.   
  
She blinked sleepily at him for a second, and then narrowed her eyes. "You look pensive." There was a time not so long ago when she wouldn't have been so insightful. He must be rubbing off on her, he reflected, and found to his surprise that he wasn't entirely upset at the notion.   
  
"I have insomnia. Or maybe it was something I ate."  
  
"A half-dozen Twinkies before bedtime will do that to you. I'm surprised you're not bouncing off the walls with all that energy."  
  
He greeted her comment with a rapacious grin that showed quite a bit of fang. "I think, out of everyone, you most of all could confirm that my sugar rush wasn't so long very ago. Amazing what a little energy burst can do, ne? " His tail, formerly languishing off the edge of the mattress, curled up to wind around her left ankle.  
  
She yipped and drew herself up into a foetal ball, knees pressed tight against her chest. The snugly wrapped nest of sheets hindered the action, however, and so the tail had little trouble in following.  
  
"Stoppit!" came the muffled cry, and Kurt had the feeling she was trying to sound imposing. Usually, she was very good at it; but the messy hair, flushed face and badly-contained giggles put paid to any authority she might have once commanded with him. He knew her too well to be browbeaten, these days - although they still put on a show for the rest of the Institute.  
  
The thought lanced into his brain, unpleasant and unwelcome. Its truth made it sharp, and his malleable, half-peaceful mind made for a good dartboard. He winced, remembering the events that had led up to this current predicament - to this very bed, even.   
  
The memories were raw, but not so much that he was wont to break down in tears, as at the beginning, when she had accidentally found him weeping in a niche by the cliff. She often went there, she'd later revealed, when the dying sun cooled their tangled bodies and dried both their tears. Being on bare rock was as comforting to her as chocolate ice cream was to him.   
  
He did not love her, that much he knew. She was a good person, underneath everything, but still... Neither did she love him. They'd talked about it, and both come to the foregone conclusion that love was not a factor between them. It couldn't be. No, his heart belonged somewhere else, with someone else, as did hers.   
  
The agreement they had was free from such emotional constraints, allowing them to wallow in their respective unrequited affection without having to be alone. They found comfort in each other, and soothed the wounds left by previous heartbreak. Between them there was no possibility of whispered promises, only to be broken by pertinacious parents so consumed by media frenzy as to move halfway across the country. There were no vows of devotion, no future plans, no impossible expectations. There was only the here and now. Especially when the here and now became the "Here?" and "Right now!"  
  
The memory of this evening's pre-choreographed ballet brought a smile to his lips and chased away what painful recollections tried to remain. The clock-watching from the safety of the couch, the pretence at an early night in the middle of 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?' a hated show, the surreptitious 'port from his room to hers, and then the intertwining of limbs as they eased the day's woes from their poor, fragile bodies.   
  
She sighed, extricating herself from her cocoon and wiping a wisp of hair from her face with the back of a hand. On her middle finger glittered a small, gold ring. She never took it off, it being a cheap but valued trinket from last birthday. In days gone by she would not even have entertained the thought of wearing it. Now it was almost as much a part of her hand as the knuckle beneath which it sat, and Kurt found himself inexplicably gazing at it until she placed the hand under her pillow to plump the squashed feathers.   
  
"Go to sleep," she told him sternly, but the tone was masked by a smile. "And no more funny business. I have a big test tomorrow, and I need some rest."  
  
He stretched, arching his back to that only toes and crown touched the bed. Dutifully, his tail flipped away from her, returning to its place over the lip of the mattress. "I still can't sleep," he said, a trifle petulant.  
  
"Do I tell you my hard luck story? Try. Or better yet, go try in your own room."  
  
"And miss the sight of you with bed-head in the morning? I think not." He grinned again, eyes glowing in the misty half-dark. Outside, an owl hooted, and something skimmed past the window with a flutter of wings, making her jump.  
  
"I don't know why I put up with you, Elf," she said snarkily, rubbing her face. Then, for good measure, she added, "You moocher."  
  
"It's because of my sparkling personality," he riposted easily, plopping back into the groove his body had created. He turned onto his front, the better to let his spinal fur dry. Brushing was already a pain, without adding extra sweat-snarls to the mix. "Besides, who else could do this?"  
  
The tail reached over, not content to stay where it was supposed to, and gently chucked her chin. She closed her eyes, murmuring something inaudible, and snuggled down without further comment.   
  
As always, there was no more mention of throwing him out. Come morning he would rise early, as he always did, 'port to his room, shower, and leave for school like nothing had happened. She, in turn, would awaken late, complain about American timetables, wolf her breakfast, get on the bus, and act like she didn't spend every day watching the door for a certain blonde delinquent to make an appearance.   
  
Ah yes, he knew about that. Though in their trysts she'd never mentioned her own reason for being there aside from the odd cryptic remark, he'd guessed as much on his own. He knew her secret sin, and how it had driven her into his arms. He knew how the wider world had pushed them together with its harsh judgements and fear of the strange and unknown. They didn't fit in on so many different levels, and yet, in this thing they shared they had found something completely in tune, like a thousand bells jangling all at once. And on some deeper level, he thanked the heavens for that.  
  
Leaning across, he brushed a kiss against the top of her hair, knowing nothing would be inferred by it. It was a tradition, as was the way they concealed their arrangement from all and sundry, and that tiny whisper of lips said so many things he couldn't put into words. Like how he'd be back; like how she'd permit him to do so; and how this thing was only because reality didn't run like a movie script, where people fall neatly in love and conquer everything. True objects are never within reach.  
  
"Goodnight, Princess."  
  
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FINIS.  
  
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End file.
